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  • fritz Says -> gd ads on TV recently
    11:32 am on December 17, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , ,

    Well sometimes you feel good watching ads instead of the actual programs on TV this days.
    like the recent cleartrip ads and vodaphone ads have caught my attention

    The cleartrip ads about orange juice and the bar one about a cross dressing dude are both hilarious but I feel both are targeted to the right audience as well and the upmarket hip young generation which is the target audience for cleartrip will get the humor . but out of both the ads the one about orange juice is really good for some reason both the ads looks clich

     

  • fritz Says -> interesting interview of citibanks biggest individual shareholder
    1:10 pm on November 13, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , ,

    (This) interview of prince alwaleed is a very interesting read for the past few days citi group has been in a lot of news in the international financial markets with the resignation of their CEO Charles prince after huge huge billion dollar write offs (the likes of which us mortals cant withstand just imagine if i suddenly realized that I had lost 11 billion dollar one fine day well I don’t have that kind of money :) but if I did and someone came up to me and said you lost that amount today pal my first reaction would be OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED and you should not be showing your face to me with that news dont you get scared I might just throw something I can lay my hands on at you hahahahha)

    But citigroup is not a person but a business entity and such huge one that it can absorb such huge losses without much hiccup’s but still someone had to face the wrath and it was the CEO as always who had to face the executioner and the axe.
    In the interview there are some very interesting pointers like the fact that prince alwaleed points out that they should have a person from banking and goes onto say next time no lawyer DUH how dumb are you who understands banking ?? a person from banking and why did you hire a lawyer in the first place.

    The second point is since he is the largest individual share holder and most of his personal net worth is tied up with citigroup what sort of a financial reporting system do you’ll have in place where the write offs can change in 3 weeks?? it is scary very very scary and this is something that needs to be looked at this cannot be the CEO’s mistake he just presented the details given to buy his financial team it is not that he accounted every cent of it by sitting down this discrepancy is not a concern not only for prince alwaleed but also to other shareholders of citi group and raises serious doubts about the management at the top level not just the CEO.

    Also the complaining about the the share prices hmmmm well the company is not well managed what do you expect I am still surprised with all this antics that their share prices have not sunk lower yes its a big big entity and that is the only reason that their share holders have been optimistic but if they don’t deliver well the prices can go down south and not up north if the antics continue. Well from all this it looks like the management was sleeping and all the others doing their jobs at citi were sleeping and the scapegoat was none other then the CEO from all of this the important lesson to learn is it is better to own a company then run one :)

     

  • fritz Says -> wow what a crib
    6:09 am on November 12, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , , , , ,

    For all you who are wondering what is this post about well this post is about Mukesh Ambani’s proposed new residence in bombay called Antilia.

    Well I personally don’t own a residence of my own yet but will do so someday :)
    but I do follow a lot of this residential luxuries of famous people whether they are shown on forbes mag or on MTV Cribs yes I watch cribs because looking at those houses you learn what are the things you need to get for your crib when it is up.

    Well for a sneak peek at the proposed 4000+ crore residence of reliance CMD mukesh ambani the pic is given below of what the proposed architecture might look like once complete more details can be seen here in short it is

    • 27 storeyed
    • 6 floors for parking of 168 imported cars
    • one floor for an inhouse car service center
    • entertainment floor with a mini theatre with sitting capacity of 50 (looks like the rich guy does not have many friends hahahaha)
    • health floor with swimming pool and facilities for athletics
    • for visiting guests there will be 2 floors wow does this mean now all the visiting dignitaries of reliance be staying there instead of a hotel somewhere ?
    • 600 staff will be working there
    • three helipads on the terrace

    Way to go man what a place to stay hats off to you for that you should work hard and also stay in luxury and party hard after reaping in the rewards and finally the Indian Businessmen are realising it with the huge number of private jets being purchased, expensive imported cars, luxury apartments etc etc it is a good sign for a booming economy.

    This residence will go well with his new flying office worth 245 crores see (this) for more info. Wow I am just imagining what the other ambani brother is doing who is keeping a low profile with all this big ticket spendings by elder brother well its not that he does not have the money but then again he does not have as much as his elder brother hahahaha

    Well it will take some serious spending by another Indian to belittle Mukesh’s crib in India but hey it can be done even though I would say all this are the things that even I look for in a crib but there are more facilities and a hell of a lot of cutting edge tech inside and outside.
    my crib so now you know the list of luxuries that I want to own someday is not just restricted to a private island and private jet for my world travels for holidays, partying and cuisine tasting hey who wouldn’t want to just board their plane and go to italy and have a pizza and come when in the mood rather then settling for a domino’s or pizza hut one :)

    Realistically(as reality sinks in sob sob sob) speaking at present I need a single bedroom apartment of my own and a small office to work on my building empire dreams :)

    Hmm am wondering why name a residence after a mythical island ?? any ideas y ????


    (image is shown from mumbaimirror.com)

     

  • fritz Says -> startup pains release 0.4- Motivating the workforce
    11:09 pm on October 10, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , , ,

    Well for those who came in late (yes this line is taken from phantom comics of which I am a huge fan) in this series so far I have discussed the issues on the formation of startup then the human resource issue and then the funding so the first three articles in this series covered the above mentioned issues. Now for the 4th article in the series it is all about the motivation factor how do you keep the team motivated through the thick and thin?

    Motivating oneself is very very difficult but motivating others is virtually impossible with that said it is always good to give a shot at solving something which is impossible. when you are putting together a team they are all pumped up thinking about what they will be doing and how they will be doing it but once they join they get in the comfort zone and then they can go in a bit of a rut which can ultimately lead to becoming a unproductive employee who pulls everyone down and this is one problem that every entrepreneur should look for don’t allow anyone to get into the comfort zone how to do that? have ideation meetings, have brainstorming sessions regularly, update the people about the overall progress what has been achieved and what is remaining to be achieved all this meetings help in keeping the morale up and also keeps the people on their toes.

    Motivation factor varies from person to person some would be motivated by money, others by praise and some would some other way. Identifying what are the motivational factors for the team members is very important. Well in long term if you find that some member of your team is pulling everyone down then that member has to go out to keep the startup ecosystem healthy and motivated. Well being good at what you do and being motivated are two different things in a startup what is required is person who is good and one who is motivated.

    The Motivation factor is not only an issue for startups but also for established firms as motivational factor lacking in established firms lead to lack of growth and can stunt the growth most of the time this leads to disaster for long term prospects of the firm as innovating and striving for growth is not only the mantra for a good startup but for any company.

     

  • fritz Says -> Inspired by J. P. Morgan
    10:51 pm on October 4, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , , ,

    Normally at night when I channel surf when from one network to another till I settle on VH1 or something else which I find interesting the other night I was channel surfing and I landed up on the History channel and the one show that I love there is the Biographies well that night they were showing the biography of one Mr John Pierpont Morgan the only reason I stuck to watching the entire show was the fact that I had heard about Morgan Stanley and I knew that the Morgan in J. P. Morgan was somehow connected to that and since it is financial I thought I will find something interesting and interesting indeed it was.

    The fascinating part was how he built the 1st ever billion dollar company in the world by acquiring small steel companies and some big ones like Carnegie steel and then combining them to form the United States Steel Corporation In this deal what I found fascinating was the fact that when Mr Morgan went to meet the owner of Carnegie steel Mr Andrew Carnegie he was given on a piece of paper the sum that Mr Carnegie wanted for his firm on the piece of paper was the written the sum $480 Million and to this Mr Morgan said Done and that was it no due diligence, no evaluation, no lawyers, no power brokers that is plain old you tell me the price and I say yes or no the risk taking and the appetite of the Wild Wild West is not there in biz anymore just see the media circus around the Tata-Corrus deal and the arcelor-mittal deal the evaluations, market speculations etc etc where as the the biz deal between Mr Morgan and Mr Carnegie was between a buyer and a seller but in the modern world I guess this old fashion ways wont probably work. But then again Mr Morgan had another famous saying "If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it" with this attitude I guess he tackled the biz world too.

    For anyone who wants to someday build a billion dollar enterprise Mr Morgan is the perfect role model during the rough days the sort of person who could twist the govt to their benefit and also predict the movement of the markets and also place wise bets over what will be successful.

    To know a bit about this amazing biz figure check out (this) but this has just the minimum the other details which were shown in the history channels episode of biography are not there like what is corsair pact etc

    The people who inspire me from the biz world are Bill Gates, Steve Job, Richard Branson and now Mr J. P. Morgan there will surely be more and more people added to this list as I explore the vast jungle of corporate biographies of people who build empires with vision and hard work and how it all began with a small dream and a small startup.

     

  • fritz Says -> online collaboration heating up
    12:08 am on October 4, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , , , , , ,

    Online collaboration space is all heating up with now the big players in this space being Zoho, Google with its hosted apps for your domain and now Microsoft with its latest announcements (this) of Office going Live. Well the others are not far behind even companies like AT&T (see this) and Cisco (see this) are trying to get into this space and not to forget even Intel is making a huge push into consumer internet with its investment arm Intel Capital providing funding to many consumer internet companies.

    But out of all this players there is one player which is doing this with killer technology by its side and that is Adobe yes the new owners of the Flash platform now with all the pieces falling in place it looks like Macromedia was a killer deal for Adobe to inject new DNA into itself to become part of the innovation wave that is hitting the web now and Flash is paying a key part of it. With (this) announcement they have made it clear that they are taking part in the race and they do have the technology and the resources to win the race but will they be able to do it is the multi billion dollar question.

    But The runner that will win in this might not be the one who owns the technology but the one that builds on top of it see this the company called communigate systems have built a flash client for collaborative groupware and the interface in the screenshots look killer and since Google is in the acquisition spree and so are many others this might be the perfect target for anyone who is looking at a very innovative way to get into this race with one acquisition and their management team looks good with loads of experience behind them so they will fit well in the bigger picture.

    Out of all the big guns the one that I am very interested in is Adobe with the glimpses of what they have shown of what they are cooking in their labs it looks like a good place for lots of fun work going on now. For a very long time I have not seen anything fun reported or leaked from sources from Google labs.

    The new adobe service share looks pretty impressive but the best review has been for the media player as that would be a perfect replacement for information devices on the go.
    This is the holy grail of consumer and biz tech now finding the perfect online collaboration suite so that people people can work in a decentralized environment from multiple locations in the web 2.0 world. only time will tell who will become the winner but till the time comes niche players who are solving small problems in a innovative way of the bigger collaborative pie are good targets for acquisition. So If you are working on any nifty little project in the collaboration space or you come across something nice leave a comment.

     

  • fritz Says -> XML Internet OS is this the future?
    3:47 pm on October 2, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , ,

    Came across (this) very interesting article on DDJ.

    What is a XML Internet OS?
    It is an operating system that uses XML as core component of its architecture whether it is for UI , or System level messaging or application logic containers basically it uses XML for everything and it is internet based because it can be used over the internet

    It is just another one of those the web based operating system which everyone is talking about
    but what caught my attention was the ability of it to be used in SAAS architecture this would be very very useful for biz environments for the end user a web OS with just the normal application stuff like email, messenger,rss reader, calendar etc is more then enough but for a biz environment you need more like integration with your CRM, ERP etc etc and this is where such an XML based Internet OS can be killer as it would be easy to integrate with your existing infrastructure with a little bit of hassle.

    There is a rumor floating around for a long time now that Google is working on a web based OS well one thing to be assured is it will come with email,rss,social networking,calendar etc etc but till that comes it will just be a rumor nothing more then that.

    But till there is a one full fledged web OS available I guess it is good to learn and follow all the news coming from that space and the XML Internet OS by Xcerion looks like an interesting piece of technology to see whats under the hood and who knows they might be bought by Google after all their product seems to be good and integrating it will Google offerings will make it killer and who knows a little bit of Ubuntu for bootstrapping your PC and then loading Firefox and thats it you are logged in to a central OS with all your normal applications there and Google has the capacity to do this if someone can come up with something like this well it will put a serious dent in Microsoft’s desktop OS market share.

    This can be the future secure environment like Ubuntu then you have a secure browser Firefox and then you are just left at the insecurities of the app that you use and not worry about the other insecurities that creep in at all the levels of the normal OS for the Desktop architecture. Well the biggest losers in this architecture would be the anti virus companies etc as they would be left with no market for their products as far as viruses go well there have been quite a few web 2.0 viruses that have been seen in the wild. So this people will just have to change their product offerings I guess to be on demand virus scanning maybe form like a layer between the Web OS and the third party application provider. Well this is a challenging area lots of opportunities for anyone who wants to take them.

     

  • fritz Says -> startup pains release 0.3- funding woos
    11:54 pm on October 1, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , ,

    Well for those who came in late (yes this line is taken from phantom
    comics of which I am a huge fan) in the second part of this series I
    wrote about how I got past the human resouce problem for my startup with my dedication to student projects and mentoring students from local colleges on upcoming technologies which would be beneficial for them and me.

    Money makes the world go round well that is what everyone says and I do surely believe that in this cut throat biz world money is not just a important measure of your success but also a very important resource for fueling your biz growth and expansion. But for a startup this is a far fetched dream what is first required is a little bit of money and a lot of smart work to multiply that small investment and give good returns to all your share holders. but raising that small amount of money is no bed of roses it is one tough cookie to crack believe me have gone through that am still going through that as I need to raise more money to scale so that most of the goals set and deadlines are met.

    Well in my case for a small person who is making a living in a place like goa it is not easy to leave a job and start something of your own unless you are having a rich parents and bunch of friends who are rolling in money well for me I don’t have either. My parents are middle class working people well only my dad is working and mom is a house wife and am the eldest one of the family so I can’t borrow from siblings as even my one and only younger bro is also helping me with my startup so borrowing from a sibling who has a secured high paying job is out of the picture.And as far as my friends go well most of them have just started working and don’t have savings to the depth where they can believe in one of their friends and invest in his startup but in spite of this I am very grateful to some of my friends who have shown great faith in me and invested in my startup they are Luther,Sarvesh and Satya Thanks guys for showing some faith in me and investing in my startup they didn’t have a lot to spare but they did try to give me some financial help when I asked for it and that is what counts at the end.

    Finance and a startup hmm it is a well known fact that the different stages of funding a a startup are seed money and vc funding. well I cant go in for VC funding as I don’t have a track record neither the god fathers who can give me good references and as far as bootstraping the startup goes I have done that with my savings and also borrowings from friends especially Luther who has invested a hefty amount in my venture so far.Well for a startup I have gone past the bootstrap phase and now come to the stage where I have prototypes ready and I can go for seed funding and get the prototypes to the production stage and then look for VC funding.

    The bootstraping phase was completed with my savings and with what my friends pitched in and now I was looking for seed funding and am happy that have got that too and at a decent evaluation without diluting a significant portion of my equity in the firm and with this new found cash can afford to take the product to the next stage and launch it soon before I go for second round of seed financing As I don’t want to raise VC money unless absolutely necessary but want to build a biz which can sustain itself and also develop cash reserves for expansion plans but one important aspect of biz is nothing goes as plan and you have to be prepared fot it.

    Getting the seed funding is the happiest that I have been so far in my short life as an entrepreneur why you ask? It is for the simple fact that when you raise seed money it is a pat on the back which says well done and someone else believes in you and wants to trust you with their money and plus this small investment fuels you with renewed passion to push yourself more to get more out of the minimum you have raised so that you don’t have to go for more dilution of stake to raise money in the future. stretching the small amount of investment is a huge huge task cutting down costs for a startup which is virtually on a shoestring budget is virtually impossible the expenses don’t go down as time goes but they go up.

    Well what is in store for me now since the bootstrapping phase is over and so is the initial seed funding round (well for me seed funding round is equivalent to 1st VC funding round and not actually seed funding) as for people who invested in me thank you for believing and for others well all I can say is opportunity to become part of history might come knocking just once and when it does you either decide you want to take it or no. Well I will still look for more funding and see if i get better valuation then will dilute more stake to get strategic partners and off course more funds for expansion but the main point being good valuation.

     

  • fritz Says -> the wild hunt for second success for a desi serial entrepreneur
    1:10 am on October 1, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , ,

    Whenever I think about the term serial entrepreneur The names that come to my mind from the tech industry are paypal founders, the kazaa founders and our very own desi Sabeer Bhatia.

    For all those who dont know much about the paypal founders after their successful exit some of the paypal employees got involved with many other ventures and most of them did cash out for example youtube etc are paypal alumni and also the widgets that are so popular on facebook like slide etc are powered by one of the co founders of paypal new startup.
    The kazaa guys went on to found skype which they sold for a huge sum to ebay and now they have set their sights on joost a new internet based p2p Tv platform which itself has raised closed to 50 million $ in funding so far .

    Where as this serial entrepreneurs have tasted success on some of their other ventures our very own desi serial entrepreneur in search of the second success is struggling and boy is he struggling badly his venture arzoo went down and has now come up in its new avatar as a travel portal also his vision for a nano city looks a bit odd to me but then again what do I know of nano technology ( I am assuming that is the technology that will be worked on at the nano park) also came across (this) very interesting article and what caught my attention was the fact tht Mr Bhatia thinking that he can build a google out of one of the 7 companies that he has invested in WOW why just one of them and not all is my question to him?

    I had my doubts whether Sabeer can deliver a successful venture on his own but now as time goes by it looks like it will be difficult for him to do that and it also looks like the team at hotmail was what made hotmail a success and without that team he wont be able to build another success story but till then I guess he will be taking a bit out of his savings from his share of the pie which he carved out for himself after the 400 million $ sale of hotmail to Microsoft.

    I guess the hunt for the taste of another success story can make a person restless and make them do crazy things but I believe that if a person sticks to the basics and goes back to the drawing board and thinks of problems and experiences them first hand then you can always taste success again but it might not be as big as you expect of it but sometimes if u hunt for bigger success you loose on small success which can later on lead to bigger ones.

    Well all I can say is Sabeer if you are reading this maybe you should invest in my startup it wont be the next Google but can assure you that you will get good returns and not loose money. Well if you do read the article you will see that he plans to launch ice creams for lactose intolerants in India and also maybe open up a hotel for pets ( yes a hotel for your pets) well lactose intolerants might work but the market is small but hotel for pets well that is what might give a tough fight to the hilton or marriots chain of hotel I guess hahahahaha.

    So should a entrepreneur search for a second success story a definite yes but like I said they should go back to the drawing board themselves and come up with the idea

     

  • fritz Says -> startup pains release 0.2- human resources
    3:34 pm on September 30, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: article, , , , , , ,

    Well for those who came in late (yes this line is taken from phantom comics of which I am a huge fan) in the first part of this series I told how I got the idea for my startup and then how I identified the first obstacle to overcome that is getting the right people to work with you on your idea.

    The first problem was in getting them familiar with technologies that I was going to work with and the second problem was with getting the right talent at the right price. So to overcome this I started giving out student projects to work on technologies that I was planning to use and this would give me the opportunity to interact with the potential future employees. So far it has been going good got the right people and the other big factor which helped was the fact that there are a few people in goa who are willing to take risk by working on innovative projects for a unknown company (yet but this will change soon) rather then joining infosys and wipro etc for big fat packages but they will all be rewarded for their risk taking abilities and that is the sort of environment that am promoting in my startup. People with risk taking ability and ability to execute my vision will be rewarded handsomely in the long term.

    But this is not the easy way when you are mentoring students and holding a job and if mentoring is not a part of your 9 to 5 job then it is very very exhausting to do research and see if the project is on track do research about feasibility of the project and competitors if any at night and takes up most of the time during nights which you would normally spend sleeping or reading or relaxing or partying. But to get the bigger vision on track this are the sacrifices you have to make (it is not that bad as I make it sound but I wont know about it being bad as for me I had good company you know who you are so thank you for being there)

    This method does not work out always many of the students who had done their projects with me last year didn’t accept my offer and they decided to go with the other offers they got anyway all the best to them if all had not joined then I would have been in real trouble and very upset too. But then again hiring and firing is all part of the cycle if you want to stay in biz and want your biz to be a profitable one recently I fired a person didn’t make me feel good as that is the first person whom I have fired from their job in my startup two others have left but people joining and leaving is a vicious circle of staying ahead in this competitive world if you cant rise to the occasion you are out of here. But then again whether it is hiring or firing I do give a fair chance to them which is always important and the boss should decide does this person add value to the company or not and then it is a simple thing of calling and telling them whether they are in or out.

    Right people with the potential and skills and the right amount of motivation and enthusiasm to get it done is the biggest factor which can lead to a success story.

    As for me am happy that have found a bunch of very dedicated and hard working people but if they ever lose their zest then I guess i will give them a fair chance to get their groove back or else they get the boot. This human resource problem is there for a startup and a established firm so this problem is a perpetual one I guess and for me I dont worry much about this now as the core team that I found is good and I have faith in them so now with this issue in the wraps I move on to the next challenge which is the financial stress on a startup.

     

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